A Veil of Shadows
by NightWight300
Summary: There is a new student at Hogwarts. A murderer. She killed with the Avada Kedavra curse and yet she has no magic. At least no type of magic that has been before in this world. With a Slytherin best friend, a corrupt ministry and torturous nightmares, Albus Potter never thought his 5th year would be easy but he had never thought it would be deadly. AU. 0% ship fluff.


Chapter 1- The First Dream

A young man, barely eighteen, glided across dark woodland, cloaked and hooded in black. There was an unmistakeable look of terror on his face. He whipped round in panic, panting, before quickening his pace. There was something following him, something awful, something hidden by the shadows of the knarled and withered trees. Bent with age, they almost seemed to aim disapproving looks at the youth who wandered so deeply into their domain. The young man was running now, seemingly unaware of the brambles and creepers clawing at his face. He stumbled, in a state of utter terror, petrified by whatever ancient horror was pursuing him.

The image faded, replaced by the familiar walls of the Ministry, looking dingy and dilapidated as they did in these dark times in which the wizarding world now lived. Suddenly, the workers appeared, scurrying from the fireplaces like ants. Everything span out of control.

It was like time had something caught on its film, and had started playing the same damaged slide again and again. He couldn't focus. He couldn't breathe. For a moment, he thought he had died and gone to hell. A warm hand caught him and led him away, like a child who had just witnessed a scene that was too much for their minds to understand or tolerate.

He looked up. It was Ada, he thought dreamily, Ada Beckett, though much more beautiful than she looked in real life. She spoke to him, smiling but he couldn't understand what she was saying. He didn't care. At last they came to the Department of Mysteries. She grasped both his hands and turned him to face her. "I'm so sorry" she smiled, but this time her smile didn't reach her eyes "It's the only way". He looked down at her hands. They were claws.

She pushed him through the door and he pulled her through with him, and they fell, into the abyss. She let out an inhuman shriek of outrage and attacked him with a kind of feral anger you just don't see in beings with souls. She would have killed him, and easily at that, for used her viciously sharp teeth as much as she did her talons, but before she could rip out his throat, she was engulfed by some kind of unnatural fire, which reduced her ashes, but not before she let out an unholy roar, which could break the sanity of a thousand men.

He landed, not knowing if he was alive, dead or somewhere in between, on a cold stone floor, so cold, it chilled his very heart. He pulled himself up, shaking and covered in ash, with only the echoes of his ragged breathing for company. It was then that he noticed. The shadows. They were to big just to belong to the walls.

"Are you not scared?" said a familiar voice, somehow horribly tainted, with something otherworldly and awful. "Are you not terrified?" hissed James. It stepped in to the light, showing itself for what it was.

A dreadful puppet, a corpse, stuffed to look like its owner in life, with clockwork hinges and a plaster coated face. But worst were the eyes, in the fact the there were none. They had been gouged, and the empty sockets glinted like black lagoons.

"I do not fear you" he lied, so obviously it made the James puppet laugh. As he did, many more familiar, infernal puppets stepped out, hand in hand. Everyone he knew, everyone he cared for.

"Are you not scared?" the corpses chanted in unison. "Are you not terrified?"…

In the forest, the young man writhed helplessly on the ground, desperately trying to lose the gaze of a girl, who looked to beautiful and sinister to be real. It was almost as if she had immobilized him, and was suffocating him with her stare. Silently she held her gaze until the young man managed to choke out "what are you?"

His answer came in the form of a cloud of pure darkness, billowing as smoke from her mouth, dripping from down her lips like ink. And that was the moment he knew there was no hope of saving anything pure in this world…

Albus Potter woke from the worst nightmare he'd had as long as he could remember, drenched in sweat. His dreams, like everyone else's, normally had something to do with, what he already knew, what he had been thinking about, what he feared, just all messed up. He had found this dream however, both horrifying and confusing. Who was the young man in the forest? Who was the girl? Were his family dead? Were they going to die? And become those things? What had happened in the ministry and why had his brain not been able to cope with what he saw? And finally, who (or what) the heck was Ada Beckett and why did he recognise her?

xxXxx

Albus managed to haul himself out of bed, still pondering the meaning of his dream. It couldn't have been one of the kind that his father had, could it? No, it couldn't, for those kind of dreams you need to have a physic connection, have been touched by a curse of some sort and in Albus Potters mind, nothing had ever happened to him even remotely interesting enough to have caused such a nightmare. He sighed. He better not tell James his dream had spooked him so, or he would have a field trip.

Welcome to the state of mind of Albus Potter. The shadowy yin to his brother's yang. They were as different in appearance as they were in character, sharing only their father's messy black hair. James made it look cool. On Albus, it just looked like a mop.

James was average height, though he was often considered tall, because of the way he held himself. He was very athletic, captain of the Quiditch team, with tanned skin, charming brown Weasley eyes and a wide, white toothed grin permanently plastered across his face.

Albus was very tall and lithe, but held himself in a permanent hunch. He was very pale, with a long, thin face and brilliant, yet mournful, green eyes. The only time he ever showed his unpractised, awkward little smile was in the company of his friends, Jade Zabini and Violas Lovegood. He never really fitted in with the "Weasley Clan" as they were commonly known, as there wasn't single Gryffindor of half or pure blood who wasn't somehow related to the Weasley's, either through blood or marriage. The world of wizarding families was becoming very close knit, and Albus had even once heard some Muggle born Hufflepuffs betting on how many generations it would be before they were all inbred.

Albus cared very dearly for his family, but despite their polite attitude towards Albus's opinions and friends, who were all in Ravenclaw, with the exception of Jade, who was in Slytherin (that had defiantly caused some trouble with Uncle Ron, who had never been quite as nice to him since) he had always been a bit of an outcast amongst them.

Every day, he found time to feel shocked that he had been put in Gryffindor, without even asking. All the other Gryffindors of his generation were all equally loud-mouthed, optimistic and naïve to the turmoil that was currently going on at the Ministry. Albus read the biggest Ministry independent paper, The Daily Mage, everyday, which always caused a great deal of laughter amongst his siblings.

Since the Wizarding Secrecy Protection act of 2015, after the White House incident, when it was discovered that a secret branch of the US government had been set up to spy on the American Ministry of Magic and "gain without express permission" powerful magical artefacts. All the memory wipes had been a difficult, messy, (and deadly in some cases) operation and there had been wide spread panic about the matter. Many extremist branches had been let into wizarding government, suspending privacy with bugging spells and making life generally difficult for Muggle borns. Albus was ten years old when it came into place, and he had been paranoid of the Ministry ever since. He just didn't get it why nobody else was.

That why, it was to Albus's horror, that when he saw that the fireplace was being fitted with superfast floo network.

"Mum!" he shouted running down the stairs and stumbling into the kitchen. Ginny Potter was fitting a small silver box into the bricks. "What the hell do you think you're doing?! I told you the superfast network is being watched!"

"Oh Al, stop being so paranoid, even if the network is bugged, like all those wild rumours you read in that Independent paper, what have good people like us have to fear? She chuckled "Anyway," she said in her normal, head-screwed on, upbeat fashion "There's hardly anyone who uses the old network anymore and we need the new network to get to the leaky cauldron, remember"

He marched up to the superfast enhancement box and knocked out the wall. "You just don't get do you?" he seethed to his mother's shocked face. "We are being watched, you know it all too well and do you really think that the ministry's idea of a good person is the same as ours?!" Ginny, stared into her son's face, stunned

"Their idea of good person is a government worshiping pure-blood, who has no opinion of their own!" he raged, panting

Ginny swelled with anger. Albus was just about to march back up the stairs when she yelled (in her "Molly" voice as some people called it) "Albus Severus Potter, who do you think you are, to yell at your own mother like that". There was an awkward silence as Ginny caught her breath.

"Look, Al I'm sorry, okay, but there's only so long you can hold out against the tide of time". She spoke softly this time, imploring her son to see reason. Albus still had his back turned.

"I'm sorry to mum, but you know how I feel" he replied "Look, just go ahead and install the bloody thing, I'll take the train".

"Al, I … "But he'd already run up the stairs, she could hear him slam the door of his room. It was becoming harder and harder to cope with her son's, how could she put this- abnormalities. It's not that she liked the new ministry, but she didn't see away that anyone, especially a 15-year old boy, could stand against them.

Albus sat on his bed with his head in his hands. It had been a painful five weeks. He hadn't seen his friends at all over the holidays, chiefly because things were just so awkward with his family when he brought a none-Gryffindor over. Ever since the new laws were put in place which forbid anyone without magic to know of it, there had been less muggle-borns attending Hogwarts, as most couldn't be sneaked of, and most didn't want to if they had to lie to their parents about where they were going. Also there been much less wizard-muggle marriages because of these laws. The houses had now almost become like clans of a few wizarding families that stuck with their own. It reminded Albus of tribe warfare. The only one of his friends who was remotely comfortable around his family was Violas, and he was on holiday.

He sighed, listening to his sister's idle chatter next door. Why did he have to be young now, when the world was becoming a darker place every day?

xxXxx

Mark Thomas of The Daily Mage shifted uncomfortably in his jurors' robes, the taste of polyjuice potion still in his mouth. He didn't know what the punishment for breaking into such a high security trial was and he didn't want to find out. It was probably death he thought bitterly, remembering his father's stories of running from yet another corrupt ministry. It was would not be long now before this ministry took it that far, and yet people still seemed so oblivious to the shadow, a veil of shadows, that was blinded them to the terrible corruption in the ministry. And only The Daily Mage and a few other independent medias stood against them. The Daily Mage had many great spies and Mark still didn't fully understand why he had been chosen to infiltrate the most secretive trial in centuries. Maybe they thought he was disposable, he wondered, maybe they didn't think that the ministry would recognise him if was caught, and he would land the full blame. No he thought, the whole reason why he believed in the Mage was that they weren't corrupt, or manipulative, or greedy, not like the ministry. He straightened his robes and adjusted his cap for the final time and prepared himself to enter the Ministry.

How did you enter exactly he wondered standing in the cubicle, his palms already sweaty. He thought, after all the Mage's planning and investigation, they'd of found out that at least. Not that it was easy collecting information these days, as wherever the ministry was present, even just on a public notice poster in some grubby shop corner. They were all bugged; the Mage's agents ought to know better than anyone. An investigation into the ministry using torture to gain confessions had ended messily when a junior member had failed to notice a cleverly placed job advertisement whilst talking to his friend about the matter. He was never seen again.

How the hell did it work? Judging by the splashing noises coming from next door, it involved the toilet itself. He was about to panic when he heard someone passing by his cubicle. "I know you're dry when you come out the other end, but I just don't like the general idea of flushing yourself down the loo. I mean, what kind of a genius came up with that?"

Uneasily, and feeling slightly self-conscious despite the fact he was alone, Mark stepped in to the toilet, closed his eyes (wizarding modes of transport tended to a bit nauseating, until you got used to them) and flushed…

Mark felt himself get swept along by a growing tide of witches and wizards, trying to remember the directions that he had discussed with the Mage's editor, Katrina Bones. The general air of the ministry felt cold, and it was soon explained why. Dementors, guarding the entrance to the more important and secretive levels. Shaking now, he walked on to have his I.D. checked. He hoped it wouldn't take long; he had had a lifelong fear of Dementors.

"And you are?" asked the guard, a particularly cold and sneering wizard"

Mar… Adrien Shunspike" he stuttered with what he thought was obviously guilty face. The guard raised his eyebrows but the I.D. checked out fine and he didn't try to stop him.

He followed the other jurors, judges and officials, past the Department of Mysteries, to the courtrooms. The place seemed give of a cold aura, even more powerful than that given off than the Dementors. He shivered. What were they keeping in there?

Although the number who were finding their seats seemed pretty small, the head judge and Minister for Magic, Augustus Barrow, a weasel of a man, had chosen to hold the trial in the largest of the courtrooms, not to hold lots of family or lawyers (in fact there were no family or defence lawyers in sight) but to intimidate whoever was going to be sitting in the heavily chained chair in the middle of the floor…

Mark fidgeted in his chair. He wasn't an expert in politics but he recognised the vast majority of the jurors as corrupt government officials, very close to the Minster and bound to agree to his every word. So much for being tried by your own. He would just have to go with the flow he thought sadly (secret trials like these were often held for harmless political activists who had never done anything officially wrong apart from opposing the Ministry), but his task was to remain under cover and collect information on the Ministry, not save some perfectly law-abiding public speaker. But then again, this trial was much bigger than anything else the Mage had ever got wind of, so maybe it was different. Nervously, he watched Barrow take his seat.

"As you all know," announced Barrow "The defendant is charged with the murder of 27, by use of the Avada Kedarvra curse." Silence. Despite the fact that everybody already knew the charges (Except Mark, who struggled not to look too much like a goldfish) such a terrible crime had not happened since the second wizarding war, and the facts were still shocking, the crime unforgivable. "9 of the victims were of magical blood, and from witness accounts, which of which we have 36 wizarding sources and a great deal more uncounted muggle ones, the deaths were all caused by one single, ultra-powerful curse… We have conducted tests and none of our witness' had their memories altered." Finished Barrow to quell looks of utter disbelief around the room. A killer that attacked both muggles and wizards, and could kill 27 with one curse. It was unheard of. Once the murmurs and exchanges of confused looks had gone on for a while, Barrow coughed for attention. He was ignored.

"Why do we even need this full scale trial, might I say, minister" asked a small, ferrety witch on one of the back benches. "Why can't we just determine they're guilty and let the dementors have them?" The court generally nodded in agreement.

"You really should have let me finish the known facts, Miss Parkinson, we have not yet reached the vital point" droned Barrow. Despite his solemn face, there were signs of annoyance in Barrow's eyes, and behind that urgency. The little witch blushed and sat down. The court settled.

Barrow picked up his speech and said (looking shocked at what he was about to say)

"We have caught a suspect, who matched perfectly every single description of the killer. We have performed tests and our experts determined that the killer had absolutely no magic what so ever."

An unnatural silence hung over the court. "At least, not any kind that we can identify" finished Barrow, who seemed to have momentarily lost his ability to speak.

A few more seconds of silence prevailed before the doors slammed open. Four dementors floated in, their mournful aura sucking the last speck of warmth from the room. Each dementor carried a chain and was holding a heavily bound prisoner firmly at a distance. The prisoner glided much like the dementors in the way they walked. They were also hooded in black, not unlike the ones the dementors wore, only less ragged. Less ragged, but the sinister affect was still there. The prisoner had an aura of power around, an aura of age, yet the elegant hands (baring deadly nails) were obviously young.

They swept past were Mark was sat, trembling now. For a moment his eyes met with whoever was under the hood. Beautiful violet eyes, full of youth, yet somehow they had undertones of hatred, of death. Small lips smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes. He was sure the face was female. A girl, an innocent little girl, who had killed 27 people.

Mark gulped. This was more than he bargained for. Much more.

xxXxx

Katrina Bones hurriedly edited the 347th (and the last) edition of the Daily Mage. The article, although placed in a side column and only a couple of paragraphs long, was the most ground breaking piece of information ever uncovered by the Mage. The details of an unofficial trial, judged by the Minster himself. The only reason why it wasn't printed as a headline was that she wanted to give others who had worked on the break in time to escape before the ministry found out it had been infiltrated.

Mark Thomas's recount had been long and vivid but Katrina was finding it very difficult to make anything he had told them into newspaper material. The facts on the murders itself were fascinating yet inconclusive, just as the trial had been. It was all very interesting, but presented many questions that simply could not be answered. She recalled Mark's detailed recount of the trial…

"_Ersa McCraw, you are charged with murder. How do you plead?" _

_The girl sat on chair as if she was the one judging Barrow. Her eyes glistened like she was about to reveal some terrible and terrifying secret. She smiled. This was exactly the effect she wanted, you could tell. But you couldn't help yourself._

"_Guilty" she answered in a sinister tone, beaming all the way, which made it twice as unnerving._

_There was silence. She looked around at the court, indulging in their terror. When the moment had reached its peak she grinned nastily before turning to Barrow. _

"_Speak, old man, is that not what you're paid to do? She smirked teasingly. Suddenly her humorous, infuriating, terrifying and somehow unanswerable tone ended abruptly. "Speak" she hissed._

_Barrow coughed nervously, trying with all his might to make it look like his wasn't being ordered to speak and was continuing of his own free will. _

"_Do you confirm that you have no magic?"_

"_Your aurors ran pointless tests on me for 6 hours. What do you think?"_

"_And then how do you explain the fact that you killed 27 with the unforgivable curse that is Avada Kedarvra?"_

_Suddenly she slumped back into her chair, grinned at Barrow and answered coolly._

"_I haven't got a bloody clue"_

_As she laughed at her own maliciousness, Barrow, reputed for his heart of stone and his emotionless attitude, looked quite literally on the verge of tears… _

Katrina made a few last minute adjustments and, with her heart in her mouth, handed the draft over to her assistant. She nodded grimly. The assistant seemed to know what she meant. It's now or never. Just do it.

She had planned this moment for so long, and in her plans she had been brave. She could hear all the staff who weren't vital to the printing leaving, some looking forlorn, others tense. This was the end of the Daily Mage. If Katrina could only hold her nerve, it would be a graceful one. If she couldn't, she didn't like to think about how the amount that would be hurt by it. And if she did hold it together, and all went well, the Ministry might still be baying for blood. They had gone to a unique extent to keep this trial private, and everyone who was now fleeing the building might be fleeing in vain.

But she didn't want to think about it.

An hour later the owls started arriving. The readers of the mage had to send their own, home trained birds to collect the Mage, as it was a well-known fact amongst the readers and members that the ministry had tracking implants on all registered owls (All owls trained by known trainers were registered under the Wizarding Secrecy Act). The remaining staff hurriedly tied the papers to the birds' legs and sent them on their way. Katrina joined in, not because she was needed but because she was glad of a distraction. A raven swooped down and had pecked her several times before she realised that it was a delivery bird as well. She laughed. It wasn't much to laugh at but it would almost certainly be her last opportunity to. She carefully tied the Mage to its leg and watched it fly away into the distance. When the black speck was finally out of sight, reality dropped like a stone. She would not leave this building. Not her true self. This was the last stand of Katrina Bones.

The half grim, half sorrowful looks on the faces of The Mages remaining staff showed clear as day to her that it was time to put months of careful planning into action.

Katrina felt she should follow her workers to the exits. They all knew exactly what they were doing, but she felt that if she didn't at least give a silent farewell to those who had served her cause so loyally, the guilt would have been in her soul until its last living seconds. She looked on as her staff packed up their things and prepared to disappear.

For that was her plan. The moment the ministry found out, everyone involved in the Mage's production would no longer exist. They would have new names in new countries, leaving Britain on unregistered brooms, without telling anyone not directly involved with the Mage anything about them even considering leaving. With a good distraction, they should be able to escape.

But not Katrina. There was no way she could leave the small yet unique rebellion she had started. If she left, they would find her. They would destroy all she cared for, until she presented herself, with a full denouncement of all she had revealed, a cowardly end and a traitor's death. Her only option, her only purpose now was to be that distraction that saved her friends.

And she intended to bow out in style.

-END OF INTRO-

**Thank you for reading my first chapter, I hope you enjoyed it. The multiple storylines do come together, and most of this story will follow Albus. As I put in my summary, this story will be quite AU. To the imaginative readers out there, I would like to challenge you to work out what's going on before Albus does! Please, tell me what you think, N.W. ;)**


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